The beautiful mountain lake below.
We stopped for lunch in Papallacta, a small resort town known of its thermal springs tucked high away in an Andean valley (11,000 feet above sea level). We had the option to bathe in the hot springs, but only one of us had any interest and I didn't want to ask my traveling companions to give up the time for me to bathe in the warm water.
So, we continued on to our next stop outside Quito. This is the actual designated center of the world, latitude 0-0-0 as established by GPS in 2005.
Then we took our turn straddling the line.
The llamas were friendly and the grounds were beautiful.
However, the rooms left much to be desired. It was quite cold here at night (8,500 feet above sea level). The cabins had no heat except for a fireplace. A staff mmber came and lit a fire in our room, it completely filled the room with smoke. We had to go outside. Then, when Sylvia got in the shower and turned on the hot water, the knob came off the hot water valve and went flying across the room, making it impossible to adjust the water, or even turn off the hot. We finally got it turned off but had a few frantic moments as the shower ran scalding hot water. With the smoke and water problems I contacted the front desk and they eventually proposed that we move next door to a handicapped room. So, after dark and ready for bed we had to gather up all our belongings and move to another room with no heat and dirty carpet. The main building and restaurant of the resort were very nice. The grounds were beautiful. The cabins very much needed to be updated. We were very uncomfortable for the night and reported this to Friendly Planet when we returned home. It's now been four weeks since we returned and Friendly Planet has not yet responded regarding these problems.
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